Moments of Perception: Experimental Film in Canada

For years, experimental filmmakers in Canada have been exploring national identity through their filmmaking. From Joyce Wieland’s Reason Over Passion, which deconstructs the words of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau – to Gariné Torossian’s Girl From Moush, which explores diaspora and the cultural mosaic that constitute Canadian life, avant-garde artists in Canada have been pushing against the status quo and dissecting and reformulating what it means to be Canadian.

In its attempts to create a collective national identity, Canada has historically relied on the rhetoric of “we are not the United States.” (used the tactic of reminding ourselves that we are not the United States). While there are undoubtedly aspects of our national identity that separate us from our neighbors to the South, this tendency to distinguish ourselves based on this idea alone, has caused us to neglect the colonialism and systemic racism within Canada’s history. Further, because many Canadian experimental filmmakers first gained success in the United States and we still rely on American institutions to canonize and preserve Canadian experimental film, this question of national identity remains entangled with American cultural imperialism.

The first history of Canadian experimental filmmaking, Moments of Perception is a landmark book that maps avant-garde film across the country from the 1950s to the present, including its contributions and complexities. Featuring a major essay on the history of the movement by Michael Zryd and profiles of key filmmakers by Stephen Broomer and editors Jim Shedden and Barbara Sternberg, Moments of Perception offers a fresh perspective on the ever-evolving history of Canada’s experimental film and moving image media arts.

Canadian Images is Conversation proudly presents Moments of Perception: Experimental Film in Canada book launch and screening March 17, 2022 at 7pm in Wenjack Theatre, Trent University. The screening features the work of 12 filmmakers from across Canada from various backgrounds. Please join us for a discussion with authors Michael Zryd and Jim Shedden on the films, the book, and the complexity of defining “Canadian” while acknowledging that “Canada sits on lands that have been inhabited by Indigenous people for millennia and has legacies of settlement and genocide that persists to this day” (19). Advance registration at Eventbrite.ca. Free to all.

Film Screening:
Standard Time / Michael Snow / Colour / sound / 1967 / 8 min. (16mm print)
all-around junior male / Lindsay McIntyre / B+W / Sound / 2012 / 7.5 min (16mm print)
Time Being / Barbara Sternberg / Colour / Silent / 2014 / 2 min. (16mm print)
Rat Life and Diet in North America / Joyce Wieland / Colour / Sound / 1968 / 16 min. (16mm print)
Migration / David Rimmer / Colour / Sound / 1969 / 11 min. (16mm print)
The Bird that Chirped on Bathurst / Midi Onodera /B+W / Sound / 1981 /3.5 min. (16mm print)
Gulls at Gibraltar / Stephen Broomer / B+W / Silent / 2015 / 3.5 min. (Digital video)
The Cave / Cara Mumford / Colour / Sound / 2020 / 4 min. (Digital video)
Athyrium Filix Femina (For Anna Atkins) / Kelly Egan / Colour / Sound / 2016 / 4 min. (Digital video)
Black Rectangle / Rhayne Vermette / Colour / Sound / 2014 / 2 min. (Digital video)
Girl from Moush / Gariné Torossian / Colour / Sound / 1993 / 6 min. (16mm print)